Last Call For Long Train Runnin'

The railroad union strike narrowly averted before the midterms has now festered into a mess as several rail unions have voted down the measure and could go on strike, completely shutting down the nation's railroads in as early as two weeks.

One of the largest railroad unions narrowly voted to reject a contract deal brokered by the White House, bringing the country once again closer to a rail strike that could paralyze much of the economy ahead of the holidays, union officials announced on Monday.

The union representing roughly 28,000 rail conductors, SMART Transportation Division, voted the deal down by 50.9 percent, the union said. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which represents engineers, announced on Monday that 53.5 percent of members voted to ratify the deal. These unions represent 57,000 workers and are the largest and most politically powerful of the 12 rail unions in contract discussions.

A national rail strike, which could happen as early as Dec. 5, could threaten the nation’s coal shipments, its supply of drinking water, and shut down passenger rail. The U.S. economy could lose $2 billion a day if railroad workers strike, according to the Association of American Railroads.

Already seven of 12 unions have voted to approve their contracts. But in recent weeks, three of the smaller unions, including the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, have also rejected their contracts and are back in negotiations.

The main sticking points for rank-and-file members have been over attendance and sick leave policies that penalize workers for taking time off.

“Honestly, this vote is about the frustration that the railroads have created with [their attendance policies] and the deterioration of quality of life as a result for our conductors,” Jared Cassity, the national legislative director at SMART Transportation and a conductor. “It’s about attendance policies, sick time, fatigue, and the lack of family time. A lot of these things that cannot be seen but are felt by our membership. It’s destroying their livelihoods.”

The Association of American Railroads did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cassity said the union would likely immediately resume negotiations with rail carriers as their strike deadline looms on Dec. 8

But unless Congress intervenes or a new deal is reached, workers at the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees and the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen would be allowed to strike and companies would be able to impose a lockout even sooner, right after midnight Dec. 5.

If those unions strike on Dec. 5, all of the unions would likely move in solidarity, provoking an industry-wide work stoppage.

After reaching an impasse in negotiations earlier this year, the White House appointed an emergency board in July to mediate the dispute between six major rail carriers and 12 unions that represent 115,000 railroad workers. But unions voted down that agreement.

Attendance policies have been at the heart of the dramatic showdown between the nation’s largest rail carriers and railroad workers, who did not strike after President Biden and other top administration officials brokered a last-minute agreement in late September.

 

That deal is, well, now a train wreck. The US economy will be badly damaged by even a short strike, and that $2 billion per day figure is going to be a ludicrously low estimate if it happens in the middle of the holiday shopping season.

The unions know they have a lot of leverage here, and I hope there's an agreement soon, because busting the unions right before Christmas is not going to be a good look for Congress, lame duck or not.

The real bad guys, as they have been throughout American history, are the railroad companies. Let's not forget that, either.

 

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

In Arizona, Maricopa County's top election official has been moved to a secret location with a security detail because of all the credible death threats against him thanks to GOP loser Kari Lake.

Maricopa County Supervisor Bill Gates has confirmed that he moved to an undisclosed location for his safety after security concerns connected to the 2022 midterm elections.

Deputies from the sheriff's office are also providing a security detail, officials said.

Gates, a Republican and one of the leaders of the Maricopa County Elections Department, has been a fierce defender of the county's election system and an outspoken critic of false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

In a similar vein, Gates has continued to defend the county against continued claims of fraud during the midterms. Some have focused on an issue with printers on Election Day that led to numerous tabulation machines being unable to read some ballots.

His stance has caused a slew of backlash online and in person. Some people were seen launching verbal attacks on Gates during a meeting with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors earlier this week.

Other county officials have reported receiving calls they considered threatening from campaign volunteers.

 

Needless to say, while the annulment scenario of a Republican loss in 2022 (and the odds of that happening in 2024) was largely avoided due to 2020 election deniers largely getting crushed at the polls, the danger to election officials is still very much real in the months ahead because there are multiple states where election deniers are already in power.

Besides, Kari Lake is still openly trying to steal her election, and the only question is how much help she's going to get from Arizona Republicans, who are already calling for new elections now.

A Chandler Republican recently elected to the Arizona House of Representatives says that she will not cast her vote on any bill unless the 2022 election is redone.

Liz Harris, recently elected to represent Legislative District 13 which encompasses much of Chandler, issued the statement on Instagram and her campaign website saying in part "it has become obvious that we need to hold a new election immediately."

Despite winning her own election, Harris alleges that there were "clear signs of foul play" which necessitated her demands. There has been no evidence of this.

"Machine malfunctions" were cited as one such sign. On election day, 60 of the 223 polling places in Maricopa County saw issues with their ballot printers, leading to some ballots not being counted immediately.

The issue was resolved within a few hours, and election officials say that they were able to ensure that every legal ballot was successfully counted.

Harris also questioned the fact that Treasurer Kimberly Yee (R) won her election with a greater count of votes than any other candidate.

"How can a Republican State Treasurer receive more votes than a Republican Gubernatorial or Senate candidate?" Harris asked.

In Arizona, voters are allowed to cast a split ticket. This means that they don't have to vote exclusively along party lines. Yee also received more votes than any Democratic candidate running for office.

It's not the first time that Harris has been involved in trying to overturn the results of an election.

After losing to incumbents Jennifer Pawlik (D) and Jeff Weninger (R) in the 2020 general election, Harris began a "Grassroots Canvass Report" to investigate baseless allegations of voting errors in order to decertify the results of both the state legislature and presidential elections.

The report falsely claimed to have uncovered some 173,000 “lost” votes and 96,000 “ghost votes” in a private door-to-door canvassing effort, supposedly rendering the 2020 election in Maricopa County “uncertifiable.”

Maricopa County election officials and outside experts said Liz Harris used “quasi-science" in her canvas of the 2020 election and her findings were "inaccurate."

Harris's canvassing report initially appeared in the Cyber Ninjas 'audit' draft report but was later removed from the final version after it was revealed that the DOJ had warned Harris against door-knocking.

 

If Arizona's Republican party wants to destroy themselves, great. The problem is they want to take the rest of us with them.

The Road To Gilead, Con't

Everyone who told you that either "Republicans will stop at Dobbs" or "The Right learned their lessons from the 2022 midterms" (or both!) really don't deserve to be listened to, because they are either liars or chumps.

 

Abortion foes sued the Food and Drug Administration in federal court in Texas on Friday in an effort to reverse the agency’s decades-old approval of mifepristone, the drug used in medication abortions.

Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative group that has been involved in antiabortion litigation, filed the suit in Amarillo on behalf of four antiabortion medical organizations and four doctors who had treated patients with the drug. The suit also named the Health and Human Services Department as a defendant.

The suit claims that the FDA lacked the authority to approve the drug, did not adequately study the medication and that the drug is unsafe. More than half the abortions in the United States are performed using mifepristone.

The “FDA failed America’s women and girls when it chose politics over science and approved chemical abortion drugs for use in the United States,” the lawsuit said. The suit said the agency erred in approving the drug under an expedited process that is intended to speed consideration of therapies for life-threatening illnesses, not a condition like pregnancy.

“Pregnancy is not an illness, and chemical abortion drugs don’t provide a therapeutic benefit — they end a baby’s life and they pose serious and life-threatening complications to the mother,” Julie Marie Blake, Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel, said in a statement.

Attorneys for Alliance Defending Freedom served on the legal team that helped defend Mississippi in the case that led the Supreme Court in June to strike down Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion.

The Biden administration and abortion rights advocates denounced the suit.

“For decades, women in this country have had access to FDA-approved medication abortion as a safe and effective option,” HHS said. “As [HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra] said, denying women access to any essential care they need is downright dangerous and extreme.”

The FDA said it does not comment on pending litigation.

Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy. The FDA approved the medication as safe and effective through the first seven weeks of pregnancy about two decades ago, then later extended it to 10 weeks. The drug is sometimes used “off label” after that. Patients follow the use of mifepristone with misoprostol, which causes the uterus to empty.

Greer Donley, an associate professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law who has written extensively about the abortion pill, denounced the group’s safety claims as “ridiculous.”

“Mifepristone is one of the safest drugs on the market, safer than Viagra and penicillin,” Donley said. “We have a lot of studies and a lot of data on it.”

Donley said the legal claims in the suit were “really weak.” She said the agency approved the drug under the expedited procedure because it allowed the FDA to impose restrictions on its use — restrictions that she and other abortion rights advocates think should be eliminated.

Donley said she didn’t know of any other suit that has tried to undo the FDA’s approval of abortion medication.

Loren Colson, a family medicine physician in Idaho and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, said mifepristone is “an incredibly safe medication.”

“It’s been well-studied and much safer than a lot of things you can find over the counter,” Colson said. “If they are trying to argue the safety, they have very little ground to stand on. It’s just a clear and blatant attack on abortion.”

 

The same Trump federal judge that tossed the Biden administration's LGBTQ+ protections under the Affordable Care Act a week ago now has this case.

 

They got Kacsmaryk.

The likelihood that this crank Trump judge will declare half of all abortions in the United States illegal, and issue a nationwide injunction because that’s what crank Trump judges do, is frighteningly high. https://t.co/b8XGX6MGB4

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) November 20, 2022

 

A national injunction on these drugs would end half the abortions in this country overnight, even in states where abortion is still legal.  They can also choose to tie up the case in the courts and leave the injunction standing into 2023 or even 2024. By then, irreversible damage will have been done to millions of women in America, the kind only voting Democratic in massive numbers can even begin to fix.

 

That's the point.